Is George W. Bush the Plagiarist-in-Chief?

Related

HuffPo says Dubya borrowed from published memoirs written by his subordinates and passed off quotes as his own recollections

Who knew former President George W. Bush was such a reader?

In crafting a psuedo-memoir of his time in office, "Decision Points," Dubya and/or his researcher Peter Rough tore through nonfiction books, newspapers and magazines to brush up on accounts of his time in office.

The problem is, they didn't stop there.

In their zeal to give readers an up close and personal account of his eight years as president, Bush apparently borrowed liberally from everything from Bob Woodward books about his administration to Gen. Tommy Franks' autobiography to an article from the decidedly left-leaning New York Review of Books, according to the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim.

"Many of Bush's literary misdemeanors exemplify pedestrian sloth, but others are higher crimes against the craft of memoir," Grim writes.

Grim's story stops short of charging the president with plagiarism, but does give examples that Bush lifts quotes word-for-word.

"The similarities between the way Bush recollects his and other quotes may be a case of remarkable random chance or evidence that he and his deputies were in an almost supernatural sync. If so, he essentially shares a brain with General Tommy Franks," Grims writes at one point.

Bush's publisher, the Crown Publishing Group, hit back at the Huffington Post article, saying that any similarities with other accounts were a credit to its accuracy.

"The allegation that President Bush took passages from other published sources is baseless and frankly ridiculous," David Drake, a spokesperson for the Crown Publishing Group, said in a statement. "Grimm takes issue with the fact that President Bush’s recollections correspond closely with previous accounts. Books of this nature, which describe historical fact, inevitably share common primary sources. Grimm also complains that the quotes President Bush attributes to himself in Decision Points are found in other places. President Bush is of course the best source for what he has said, and it is not surprising that his recollections conform with what others have previously reported."

There's a silver lining to the latest scandal — at least we might get to finally stop hearing about Bush and Kanye.

http://twitter.com/share?text=Is George W. Bush the Plagiarist-in-Chief?&via=TheWrap&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thewrap.com%2Fmedia%2Farticle%2Fportions-george-w-bush-memoir-lifted-advisers-books-22499%2F&t=Is George W. Bush the Plagiarist-in-Chief?http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thewrap.com%2Fmedia%2Farticle%2Fportions-george-w-bush-memoir-lifted-advisers-books-22499%2F%2F&t=Is George W. Bush the Plagiarist-in-Chief?